Several people shook their heads, clearly having never heard of those two families.
Seeing their reactions, Kio also realized that they knew nothing about it and said, "Hmm, just as I expected. After all, you're adventurers who just arrived in this town—it's only natural."
She gathered her thoughts and continued, "The Nactoy family and the Korloy family are both descended from the hero Faruhari—you at least know who Faruhari is, right?"
Asuna nodded. "He's the great hero who defeated the water dragon Aghyellr and paved the way for the founding of Voluptia, right?"
"Exactly, that's the one," Kio said.
"After defeating Aghyellr, Faruhari married a girl who was originally meant to be sacrificed to the dragon, and they had twin sons."
"But the two boys never got along from a young age. There were always all sorts of conflicts between them. Even after they grew up, they constantly argued over who should inherit the Faruhari family, sometimes even going so far as to draw swords against each other."
"To prevent his sons from killing one another, the aging Faruhari made a will forbidding them from fighting each other directly. Instead, he ordered them to tame monsters and have the monsters battle on their behalf. Through a best-of-five format, the winner would be decided as the next lord of Voluptia."
"T-Tame monsters?" Kirito was a little shocked.
"Is that even possible?"
Taming monsters was very different from how Asuna and Akimi obtained their familiars.
Only certain neutral-type monsters could become familiars, and even then, it had to be of the familiar's own will.
If you tried to force a contract, it was completely impossible—it would drastically lower the familiar's affection toward you and would even cause the entire species of that familiar to become hostile.
Plus, familiars were more like companions than subordinates.
Taming, on the other hand, allowed any monster to be used—it was essentially like capturing a monster to become your underling.
"Ordinary people like us certainly can't do that," Kio explained.
"But Faruhari possessed a secret art for taming monsters, and both twins happened to have learned it."
"After Faruhari passed away, the twins followed his will and tamed monsters, going on to participate in five matches. Both of them were very confident in the monsters they had tamed, so they gathered the residents of Voluptia and told them it would be a performance."
"Then, in front of the Faruhari family estate, they built a plaza and surrounded it with wooden fences. Their goal was to defeat each other in front of everyone—to satisfy their own vanity a little, and also to use victory as a way to put pressure on the other."
"But once the match started, something unexpected happened—the monsters broke through the fences during the fight and collapsed right in front of the watching townsfolk. This caused a huge commotion, forcing the brothers to call off the match early without determining a winner."
"However, since there were no injuries, the residents were mostly satisfied with the so-called performance. But because the previous match ended so abruptly, both brothers were left feeling unreconciled, and they announced a second 'performance.'"
"Back then, Voluptia was still a small town that relied on fishing and farming to make a living. The neighboring towns—Rekuxio to the east and Budamio to the west—were also rather underdeveloped and lacked any engaging forms of entertainment. So when the two brothers announced another match, residents from all three towns were drawn in, which greatly boosted Voluptia's growth."
By this point in Kio's story, the group could more or less guess what would happen next.
Sure enough, Kio continued, "This also led the brothers, upon seeing that the people of all three towns seemed to enjoy these 'performances,' to come up with a new idea—to turn the matches into regularly held events. That way, they could keep attracting visitors and thereby increase Voluptia's income."
"As it turned out, they were right. Huge numbers of guests flooded into Voluptia to watch these performance matches, which became known as 'Monster Duels.' From then on, the brothers stopped fighting over who would be the heir, and instead agreed that the winner of each match would take charge of the profits."
"Later, during the intervals between matches, they added all sorts of gambling methods. Eventually, they even remodeled their estate into what it is now—the Voluptia Grand Casino. And even after their deaths, the matches that once started it all are still held in the casino to this day."
After hearing the story, the group was not only surprised, but also found it somewhat amusing.
"Who would've thought," Akimi said while rubbing his nose, "that the descendants of a great hero would have such a keen business sense."
Hearing that, the other four nodded in agreement.
However, compared to the tale of how the brothers got rich, what caught Kirito's interest most was the secret art that Faruhari once possessed—monster taming.
He asked, "Since the twins inherited the secret art of the great hero Faruhari, then Miss Nirrnir, as a descendant, should also be able to use this secret art, right?"
"Yes," Kio replied.
"However, because the conditions for training in the secret art are quite strict, only direct bloodline descendants of Faruhari can learn it. Currently, only Miss Nirrnir and Bardun of the Korloy family can use the 'Servitude Secret Art.'"
At that moment, Nirrnir suddenly interjected, "But all those tamed monsters were caught in the wild by the family's guards, who weakened them first before handing them over to me to tame. There's no challenge in that. I want to go out into the wild and catch monsters myself, but Kio refused to let me no matter what."
"Young lady, we're doing this for your own good," Kio said with a sigh, rubbing his forehead in frustration.
"The people of the Korloy family are always prepared to harm you. Letting you go into the wild would be like pushing you into a pit of fire."
"Hmph." Nirrnir pouted and turned her head to the side, her tone full of displeasure.
"Instead of letting them use all kinds of underhanded tricks to ambush me, I'd rather face them head-on and settle things directly."
"Miss…"
Nirrnir waved her hand and said, "Stop, stop, stop. I know what you're going to say. Don't worry, I won't make things difficult for you."
"Uh…" Kirito raised his hand and said, "Isn't the arena jointly run by the two families? If Miss Nirrnir doesn't tame any monsters, wouldn't that seriously reduce the arena's revenue?"
"Hmph."
After letting out another cold snort, Nirrnir said angrily, "Exactly. And yet they still can't see what's right in front of them. I think Bardun's senile already. He can't even understand something so obvious—such an annoying old man."
As if venting her frustrations, Nirrnir said all that, then leaned back against the soft sofa, hugged a pillow tightly to her chest, lowered her gaze, and fell silent for a while.
"It seems he really has gotten old… He used to care about me so much, but now all he thinks about is how to prolong his pitiful remaining life," Nirrnir said in a low voice.
"To buy more time for himself, he keeps resorting to petty tricks just to take a share of the arena's profits."
"Buy… buy more time?"
Caught off guard by such a shocking statement, Akimi and the others couldn't sit still—because if there truly was a way to extend one's life, it would greatly improve their own chances of survival.
Nirrnir shook her head and didn't say anything more.
Instead, she turned to Akimi and his group and said, "These aren't things you should be asking about. Still, I have to thank you for exposing their cheating methods… Kio."
As soon as she finished speaking, Kio walked over with a bulging leather pouch and placed it in Argo's hands.
Once Argo accepted the pouch, a "Quest Completed" notification appeared in the team's quest log.
Just as they thought the quest was over, an exclamation mark "!"—indicating a new quest—appeared above Nirrnir's head.
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